


you and i

by mortalitasi



Series: stella splendens [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Adventure, Anger Issues™, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Romance, dealing with your romantic emotions by denying them until you get heartburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 15:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13390749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: The first and most important step in The Essential Assassin's Guide To Romance is to ensure that you don't fall in love with anyone, or any prospective relationship - not in the strings-attached, spend-the-rest-of-our-lives-together way.Zevran Aranai has failed step one.





	you and i

**Author's Note:**

> "it's just going to be a collection of little drabbles" and then twelve bloody pages later
> 
> guest appearance by my amell's filthy former house in the frostbacks. she's the charming girl i'll be writing about next hahaha

**i.**

  
  
Cousland talks less than she sleeps—and she only sleeps for four hours at most, some nights.  
  
When Zevran’s turn to take the watch comes, he crawls out of his tent, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, drawing his cloak around him like a protective ward from the biting Fereldan cold. He looks for her when he exits, but he needn’t have searched: she’s in the same place she was before he retired to rest, hunched up against the trunk of the gigantic oak that looms over their choice of campsite tonight, longsword laid across her lap in its sheath, her mabari curled at her feet.  
  
He sits himself down next to her, yawning wide enough that his jaw cracks. She doesn’t jolt, like she would have weeks ago—she reminds him of a haggard stray, with her thin face, and the purpling shadows under her eyes. She’s certainly jittery enough, looking over her shoulder, glaring at anything that moves. Including him, sometimes. Wringing water from stone would surely be easier than getting her to confide in him—in anyone—and so it is bizarre to him that he continues to try. It’s a compelling task. Maybe the challenge is what attracts him. He’ll settle for that.  
  
“Enjoying the scenery?” he asks, blowing warm air into the cup of his hands.  
  
She makes a sound somewhere between a hum and a grunt, utterly noncommittal.  
  
“Ah, yes,” Zevran says, nodding. “I can see what you mean. Very good point.”  
  
She looks at him out of the corner of one eye, the thick brush of her lashes catching his attention. “I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or bantering,” she says. Her voice is a smoky rasp, though it’s not from disuse. This is how she sounds all the time—and he’s been thus far too polite to ask about it.  
  
“What if it’s both?” he says, more jovially than he feels. “What’s a little harmless banter between friends?”  
  
She breathes out slowly, sending a cloud of white in his direction. “Is that what we are?” she inquires, raising a brow. “Friends?”  
  
He shrugs. The bark digs into his back. “I don’t know. Is it?”  
  
Cousland sighs, her expression collapsing into exasperation. “A question is not an answer.”  
  
He chuckles. Like most Fereldans, she is direct to a fault, and endearingly irritated by circling conversation. “You would not last very long with the Crows.”  
  
“Thank the Maker,” she says with a snort. One of her hands strokes absentmindedly at her mabari’s spine. The hound’s head is almost level with his ribs when standing—the pale eyes are like Sten’s, though the dog is extremely more personable.  
  
“You can rest, you know,” he remarks, leaning back against the tree. “Though I won’t complain about the company, should you choose to stay.”  
  
“It’s best I don’t,” she says shortly.  
  
“You will have to, at some point.”  
  
She visibly bristles at that, the muscles in her jaw locking tight, her pretty mouth pressing into a thin, displeased line. “I can sleep when I fall over,” Cousland murmurs, her grip increasing on the longsword with a creak of leather.  
  
He continues, unbothered. “It is not very comfortable. Believe me, I have tried.”  
  
She stares at him incredulously, until her brows draw together in irritation.“You always do this,” she starts, and then lowers her voice to a whisper when she realizes they are still sitting at the edge of a camp very full of sleeping people. “You hang around—you watch me when you think I’m not looking, you ask after me, you try to talk to me. Why? You never answered me—not really. What do you want? What do you _really_ want?”  
  
The frustration seeping from her makes him reconsider the quick quip that comes to his lips. “Well, I—”  
  
“I don’t understand,” she plows on, completely oblivious to the fact that she’s interrupted at all. “I don’t understand why you would waste your time trying to get close when you know—” She stops there abruptly, eyes widening, releasing her sword in a sudden movement to clutch at her throat over the fabric of her tunic and cloak; and then she begins to cough, a terrible hacking sound that’s coming from deep in her chest, dry and wrenching.  
  
He sits up in time with the mabari standing to attention, ears perked, and reaches out to her, hesitating when he remembers how she hates contact.  
  
But the coughing continues, so he reaches for the water-flask at his hip, hoping she’ll take it without complaint.  
  
Now she’s bent over her own knees, shoulders shaking, trying to muffle the coughing, with Carrick pressing the side of his muzzle into her shin, whining in concern.  
  
“Cousland,” he says gently, at last resting a hand on her back, offering her the flask with the other. She goes stone-still under his touch. “Drink some.”  
  
She holds her breath long enough to be able to take a sip from the uncorked flask, and he watches her cautiously to make sure she doesn’t choke. She always wears high-necked tunics and shirts, uses scarves, though she can excuse that due to the horrendous Fereldan weather—he has a feeling, however, it would still be the same if they were in Antiva or Rivain, or anywhere else where the sun shines longer than two hours at a time.  
  
She hands him the flask when she’s finished, arm trembling. Her face is paler than before, the smattering of her freckles standing out against the pallor.  
  
“Don’t speak,” he says to her, recorking it. “That… seems to make it worse.”  
  
Adrian nods, retreating behind the shelter of her cloak. Her dark hair is glistening in the glow of the distant campfire, the strands clinging to the fur-lined curve of her hood. She looks younger than she probably is, like this, almost vulnerable, and he has to wonder at why he bothers with her at all. The recounting of the events at Highever were highly summarized, he’s willing to bet—she hasn’t truly told the Warden half of what transpired there, except for what Mahariel needed to know, and as a man, he understands such a need for privacy. The assassin—that curious, exacting aspect of his very nature, however, knows an incomplete story when it hears one.  
  
She is burdened, clearly. Traumatized, even, in the way normal, well-adjusted people have the luxury of being—he never had the time. People he’s known in the past would tell him someone like this would be a waste to even befriend. It’s good, then, that he no longer particularly cares for what the people in his past would say.  
  
“You asked me for honesty,” he begins carefully, very aware of her attention. He stares up at what sky he can see between the branching leaves and boughs, marveling at how clear the stars are away from the smog of a larger city. “As an assassin, one is trained to take pleasures at they come. Everything is temporary. As such, I am not entirely used to masking my interest, should I feel it.” He looks at her, seeing the surprise there. “You are a wonderful woman. Strong. Is it so shocking?”  
  
Now she is staring at the ground, eyes hilariously wide, crimson creeping into her cheeks like wildfire. He has to laugh a bit, softly.  
  
“Did the possibility never occur to you? Not even once?”  
  
She shakes her head vehemently, hiding her face in her gloved hands. The mabari gives him an accusing stare, flopping down at his mistress’ side.  
  
“Cousland,” he says, but she doesn’t stir. “Adrian.”  
  
She peeks at him from between her fingers at the call of her given name.  
  
“If the thought of it offends you, you only need tell me, and there will never be mention of it again,” Zevran assures her. “Ah… when you can, of course.”  
  
She keeps her gaze fixed on a spot between her boots—perhaps it is a particularly riveting patch of dirt, who is he to say?—until he begins to think she will indeed come to her senses and rebuff him. But instead she moves a little closer, though her head is still canted stubbornly downward. Who knew brooding, tempestuous Cousland was in truth so shy?  
  
“Didn’t think it could happen,” she says, slowly, very quietly.  
  
_Could_ , not would. He scoffs, mostly at the idea of it. “I would have to be blind,” he mutters.  
  
She winces. “Different now. Than before.” Again she brushes a knuckle at the fabric over her throat.  
  
“I only know you now,” he observes, “and I like what I see.”  
  
The sad cast in her features does not abate, and she startles him when she leans in, resting her temple against his. Her skin is chilled, at least further up than where she’s flushed, but the feverish heat of her cheek is something he can feel on his collarbone and chin. He’s frozen, too hopeful to move. She is eternally careful with others, painstakingly making sure that she moves around everyone in camp, not among them; she is like a wraith in their lives, present, but never touching. Yet here she is, very real, pressed along the line of his body, shoulder to shoulder, ankle to ankle.  
  
“Haven’t _really_ seen,” she says. There is sorrow in her voice, as though she’s certain about what will happen if—or when—he does.  
  
“I have my own scars,” he confesses, rubbing their noses together.

She falls silent at that.  
  
It alarms him—how intimate this is. And how much he doesn’t mind that it is.

* * *

 

**ii.**

  
  
The knights usher them into an empty house—there’s a startling amount of those in Redcliffe, now (empty houses, not knights, though that would not be inaccurate either)—and bid them wait until night falls.  
  
So this is what they do. The body of their merry band is clustered around a table in what was this house’s dining hall, once upon a time, before the inhabitants were slaughtered or dragged away by the cursed undead in the night. A fire burns in the hearth, probably the first that’s been lit since the invasion started—the Warden had to scoop out the old grey ash first, throwing out the remains with an almost funereal solemnity. But that is why she is the Warden, and why Zevran likes her—she’s serious like that, even when others aren’t.  
  
Sten is guarding the doorway to the living room—he has predictably refused all offers of a seat, and is staying stolidly where he is, as if he’s expecting the furniture to come alive and eat them at any moment. Considering what Zevran has seen in just these few months of traveling with Mahariel, if that happened, it would not actually _totally_ surprise him.  
  
The dogs are playing by the front entrance—at least _someone_ is having a good time—and he assumes Shale is standing outside where they left her, watching the village with unsettling, glowing eyes. If the gigantic talking golem is not a good enough deterrent, Zevran will personally reward the creature (human or not) with enough bravery (or stupidity) to charge inside.  
  
The Warden is seated at the head of the table, back to the fire, resting her chin on steepled knuckles. “We have to consider the possibility that everyone in the castle we wish to rescue is already dead,” she says. If speech could change the temperature of a room, frost would now be growing along the windowsills.  
  
“Never one to mince words,” Zevran compliments, leaning back in his chair, making its front two feet pick up off the floor. “This is why I would follow you anywhere with minimal complaining.”  
  
She gives him a grim smile. “I appreciate it.”  
  
Alistair clears his throat. He’s shrugged off his armor for the time being, leaving him in a white undershirt and a very weathered pair of leggings. His friendly face is clouded with worry. “Isn’t that a tad pessimistic?”  
  
The Warden shrugs. “I won’t discount the chance that some might have survived. But if this is the doing of the arl’s enemies, who do you think they would have targeted first?”  
  
Alistair pales visibly at the thought, throat working in a dry swallow. “That can’t happen. We need Arl Eamon’s support…”  
  
A derisive scoff breaks through the end of that sentence—and Zevran lifts his gaze to see it has come from Cousland, who is occupying a chair on the side of the table directly adjacent to him. Her eyes gleam green and baleful in the firelight. Her arms are crossed, the hard muscles of her shoulders and triceps standing defined under her tunic.  
  
“Something you’d like to share?” Alistair asks, tone sharpening.  
  
“We _need_ Eamon like we need a hole in the head,” Cousland says. “The Landsmeet can be called with or without his help. I have the authority. Anora has the authority. She is queen, and until Fergus is found, I stand in his place as Teyrna.”  
  
The color that had been missing from Alistair’s face comes raging back, scarlet pooling in his cheeks. “You sound as if you _want_ him dead.”  
  
Cousland gives him a withering look. “Believe what you like,” she tells him. Her husky voice has gained an annoyed edge. “I know you have a weakness for him, for whatever unfathomable reason.”  
  
Alistair’s hands, prone on the table, curl into fists. “He’s a good man, honest, respectable—we would be lucky to be able to have him vouch for us when the time comes. I _know_ him.”  
  
“You know what he’s shown you,” Cousland snaps, and the remark is vehement enough that Morrigan, once hood-eyed with drowsiness, is now watching the barbs fly with visible interest. “Why do you think he kept you around in the first place? It wasn’t out of the goodness of his bloody heart.”  
  
“He took me in when no one else would.”  
  
“And put you in the barns to quell Isolde’s histrionics,” Adrian drawls, raising a brow when he flinches. “What—did you think it was a secret? It was the talk of the nobility for years. Everyone thought you were a bastard—just not _his_.”  
  
“It’s that cut and dry, is it?” Alistair says. “Why don’t you explain my own life to me so I can learn what I’ve been missing out on?”  
  
Adrian smiles an awful smile, all teeth and no compassion. “Oh, gladly,” she agrees, leaning in to rest her elbows on the table. “Cailan was a philandering, infertile fool, but he loved Anora all the same—and she was fond of him, in turn. He listened to her counsel, and trusted her to do her duty. There was no room for an Eamon between them.”  
  
Alistair scowls. “I’m still waiting for the part where this is all relevant, somehow.”  
  
“You’re a terrible liar,” Adrian says. “Just like he was. All you need is a wig, and most wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Your brother also had a terrible habit of thinking I couldn’t tell when he was fibbing to my face.”  
  
Zevran has to force down an incredibly inappropriate peal of laughter when Alistair chokes on his own spit. “ _How_ —nobody knew—Duncan told _no one_!”  
  
Adrian makes a disgusted noise. “I’m a warrior, Alistair, not a _lackwit_. Maric’s weakness for other women was something he passed onto Cailan. Eamon cloistered you away from any kind of outside influence because he wanted you to depend on him. He managed to keep you under his roof and quieten the rumors in one move by treating you like refuse.” Her expression hardens. “Our fathers fought together during the rebellion. If you had been given to House Cousland, you wouldn’t have been thrown into the stables to bed with animals.”  
  
“It’s a moot point,” Alistair snaps. “I wasn’t, and I did. There’s nothing you nor I can do about it.”  
  
Adrian is unbothered by his growing anger. “Teyrn Mac Tir was Maric’s closest friend and his brother-in-arms,” she continues, staring at the young man across from her with an intensity that could bore through steel. “If you think he doesn’t know about your heritage either, you’re in for a rather nasty surprise. You’re a direct threat to the regency, and to the queen. And the only thing Eamon hates more than Loghain is Anora. What do you suppose would be the quickest way to go about deposing her?”  
  
“But I don’t _want_ to be king,” Alistair protests, and the desperation in his words is almost sad. “Even if he supported my claim—I would refuse it!”  
  
Cousland narrows her eyes. “I’ve heard that before,” she says. “If he’s alive—and if it comes to that, he will try to bring you to it. And for your sake, I hope you don’t accept.”  
  
“Are you threatening me over something that hasn’t happened—that might not _ever_ happen?” Alistair splutters, totally indignant. “Have you lost your mind?”  
  
“I’m perfectly sane,” Cousland replies coolly. “Mostly, anyhow.”  
  
The Warden’s voice cuts through the tension like a knife. “I do not know this Eamon, so I cannot make personal judgments about his good character or lack thereof,” she says, her almond eyes moving from Cousland to Alistair and back again. “We’re attempting this harebrained scheme because he will be useful to us, if he yet endures—and gaining the goodwill of Redcliffe is not a bad idea, by any means.” Her expression is cautiously neutral, but there’s something menacing in how calm she is. “That said—I will not listen to any kind of manipulator, no matter how highly recommended. As you all know, you are welcome to further your own goals during your time with me… as long as it does not interfere with our quest.”  
  
“She’s saying no amount of praise will make her trust someone she hasn’t met,” Zevran supplies when he notices the constipated set of Alistair’s features.  
  
“Thank you, Zevran,” Mahariel says dryly.  
  
He dips his head at her. “I live to please.”  
  
“Considering our _current_ company,” Alistair says, lip curling, glancing out across the table, “I doubt that trust would be hard to earn.”  
  
Zevran has had worse aspersions cast on him, by worse people, in worse places, and he is not as easily provoked as Morrigan—who is, currently, bristling like an affronted cat—so the uncreative insult slides from his awareness like water off a duck’s back. The boy’s prone to fits of pique. If Alistair were a better wordsmith, perhaps Zevran would have felt something. As it stands, however—nothing.  
  
That opinion is obviously not shared. The Warden casts a warning look at Alistair, brows rising, the most displeased Zevran has ever seen her.  
  
“Alistair,” Wynne says chidingly, the first thing she’s offered this entire conversation.  
  
“What?” Alistair snaps, voice positively waspish. His chances of ever continuing are cut off by the sound of Cousland coming to her feet suddenly, palms slamming down on the table. Even Leliana, always calm and unruffled, jumps at the sudden racket.  
  
“I need a drink. Cretins make me thirsty,” Cousland announces, though her tone is more suited to declarations of murderous intent than of the mundane kind. Her nails scrape against the wood as she curls her hands into fists. She walks around them all, edging out from behind her seat, and storms out through the door. They listen to her thudding footsteps as she comes upon the dogs, rips her cloak from the pegs by the doorway, and slams the front door viciously behind her.  
  
Zevran lifts himself up quickly, offering a conciliatory smile. Alistair is still glaring in the direction she left. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t break anything.”  
  
Mahariel gives him a nod. He only has time to cast one last glance at the people gathered in the room before zipping away, his own cloak thrown over his arm. Carrick slips out beside him, paws padding soft on the damp ground.  
  
She’s already halfway down the incline, her long legs carrying her easily over earth and rock. He has to admire the confident stroke of her stride, the swing of her tight braid to and fro from shoulder to shoulder—the entire shape of her from behind, really. Catching up to her actually requires some effort, an almost-jog that demands some care go into where he’s putting his feet. Carrick bounds ahead, barking happily, and her head snaps to the left in surprise.  
  
He’s by her side by then, grinning at her, his breath leaving him in great white puffs.  
  
“Zevran,” she murmurs. The shock of hearing his first name from her is pleasant—nearly overwhelming. “Why…?”  
  
“I would be remiss indeed if I neglected to thank you for defending my honor,” he says, greatly enjoying the hilariously sour expression that overtakes her. “The effort is appreciated—especially since I don’t have any.”  
  
She turns back to face forward. “You’re wrong. You have more honor in one finger than some armies have among hundreds of men.”  
  
He laughs, more than a little nervously. “An interesting conclusion to draw.”  
  
“You have never lied to me,” she says. The utter confidence in that statement makes warmth pool in his gut.  
  
“If I did, you would _not_ know,” he replies.  
  
She glimpses at him. In the waning light of the sun, her eyes are the color of peridots; he’s seen many of them, in his time, especially during that one summer season when they were all the rage in Antiva City, and every noble worth their salt (or gold) had at least two separate pieces of clothing encrusted in them. Precious things. Exquisite things.  
  
“I would know,” she tells him, simply, and for whatever reason, he believes her.  
  
He shifts in his cloak, nearly uncomfortable… though not in a bad way. “Where are we going, exactly?” he asks. Not his most elegant or unobtrusive of subject changes, but it’ll have to do.  
  
Cousland watches him for just a tiny bit longer before she breaks eye contact. “The tavern.”  
  
Zevran snorts. “You weren’t joking.”  
  
“If I’d stayed, I would have fed him his shield,” she says, teeth gritting.  
  
He doesn’t have to ask who. “Are they truly alike?”  
  
She heaves a sigh. “More than you would care to realize. But Cailan was not so spiteful. Just gullible. An overgrown boy in man’s armor. Too enamored of tales. There’s no real glory in joining battle.”  
  
“Did you know him well, then?”  
  
She pauses, considering. “I suppose I did,” she admits, exhaling gently. “We were not close. Not the way I am to Anora. I wasn’t surprised when I heard about how he died. Perhaps that’s a horrible thing to say.”  
  
Zevran shrugs. “You become immune to it, after a while. It is better than feeling every loss as keenly as the first.”  
  
“Maybe so,” she mutters.  
  
“You seem to hold the queen in high regard.”  
  
“She is my best friend,” Adrian says quietly. “I’m worried for her. I haven’t spoken to her since… since before Highever.” She shakes her head with an amused smile. “Anora could rip out a man’s heart at ten paces with her tongue, and here I am, concerned for _her_ safety.”  
  
“I am told that is what friends do,” Zevran remarks. “Worry, that is.”  
  
They reach the bottom of the sloping incline—ahead lies a cluster of houses with dimly-lit windows, outclassed in height only by the rambling tavern. Cousland slows to a halt, looking at him again, her lips curved in a surprisingly playful smirk.  
  
“Does that mean you worry about me?” she asks.  
  
The joke stings him, like a shock of cold water, unfamiliar, but not displeasing. “You tell me,” he says, recovering quickly. “We _are_ friends, are we not?” Never mind the fact that he doesn’t exactly know what being friends truly means.  
  
“No. Only _you_ can tell me what you feel,” she says, the fur on her hood ruffling with her breath.  
  
Can he? He’s spent most his life avoiding any kind of thinking about emotions. He probably wouldn’t know an earnest feeling if it hit him in the face. Maybe if it gave him a good racking, there would be a better chance at self-enlightenment—that’s not something he particularly looks forward to, however figurative it may be.  
  
“Then…” he begins, not even distracted when Carrick headbutts his hand. “Friends.”  
  
He didn’t think saying that one thing would make her smile, but it does, and so brilliantly. It erases years’ worth of sorrow and shadow from her face, brightening her eyes, coaxing her sweet dimples out of hiding; she’s never shown him, or _anyone_ , this expression, has perhaps never had cause to—and he might have been the catalyst for it. The thought makes heat lance through him, sharp and pure.  
  
She grasps at his arm as she walks by, almost shyly, giving his bracer an affectionate squeeze. She may as well have had her hand in his chest.  
  
He watches her make for the tavern door, Carrick at her heels, all at once terrified and exhilarated. He’s fond of her. Much more than he had first anticipated.  
  
This is not good.

* * *

   
  
**iii.**  
  
  
  
The last thing he remembers before going under is the dragon dying.  
  
She is—was—a great beast, capable of wrapping around a small peak, with scales the color of the deep, wine-dark sea. Her wings, leathern, cracked like thunder, beating the party into the ground, causing even Sten to search for cover. The keening note of her final roar was still echoing in his ears when she careened out of the sky, the shaft of one the Warden’s arrows buried to the fletching in her eye.  
  
She’d fallen into the mountainside—and then the mountain had fallen upon them.  
  
In the dark, captive in the arms of the snow, he sees the many faces of his regrets. Rinna is chief among them—lovely dead Rinna, with her clouded, glassy eyes, the cut on her throat grinning wide like a lipless mouth. Black blood dribbles from behind her teeth when she tries to speak; she cannot form the words, but her voice echoes around him, as though it’s coming from the belly of a bottomless well.  
  
_Have you forgotten already? What have you done? What have you done to me?_  
  
He can’t answer her. He will go to his grave being unable to. She had loved him. There is no greater shame than that.  
  
Something is jostling him. The gloom breaks apart, shattering glass, and suddenly the glare of the winter sun is beating down on him; his wet face is freezing, his fingers numb, and he inhales moisture when he takes a reflexive gasp of air, convulsing at the cold. There is ice in his lungs, he’s sure, so bitter it burns. His cape is a soggy, dangerous weight around his neck, plastered to his nape, and all he can think is that he needs to get it off, to find someplace _warm_ where this terrible frost cannot touch him. He will sleep, and sleep, and _sleep_.  
  
“Zevran!”  
  
He knows that voice.  
  
“Zevran! Can you hear me? Open your eyes!”  
  
He does, but at first all he can see is blurred shapes, amorphous blobs of grey against the cruel white of the sky over the Frostbacks. Her face comes into focus first: her panicked expression, her cheeks and lips ruddy from the cold. Her armor is glistening with light and water—there’s a thin layer of snow on her shoulders, flakes of it peppering her nose and her lashes. She looks like a dream.  
  
“Adrian…?”  
  
“It’s me,” she affirms, breathless. “I—I almost thought I wouldn’t find you.”  
  
_I’m here,_ he wants to say. He can hear what the worry did to her in her tone. She’s lost so much already. He doesn’t want to add to the burden.  
  
“Just stay still,” she rasps. “I’ll get you out.”  
  
Had he felt like disobeying her, he still wouldn’t have been able to act on it. He lies limp as she scrambles behind him, loops her arms under his, and bodily tugs him from the snowdrift; the harsh wash of her hot breath hitting his neck and shoulder like a heartbeat, scalding the skin there. His legs pop from the dune with a comical swiftness that would probably have induced a smile, if he weren’t as much an icicle as he were a man.  
  
“Do you know if you’ve been wounded?” she asks, sounding frantic. “I can’t see any blood, but the cold might be keeping any cuts shut.”  
  
He shivers at her voice in his ear and she pulls him closer, mistaking it for a reaction to the temperature. “Just sore,” he croaks.  
  
“We’ll deal with it at camp,” she concludes, and then hefts him up while he’s helpless to make it easier on her. “Stay awake. Please—stay awake.”  
  
He decides against nodding. “I will,” he promises, squeezing her hand. “The others…?”  
  
“Nearby,” she says. “Sten has Mahariel. You—you were thrown by the impact. We’re a little bit further off.”  
  
A gust of savage wind blows past, stirring flurries of snow and evening the tops of the churned mess left behind by the avalanche. He shudders again, teeth chattering.  
  
“It’s not far to the hut,” she reminds him, though he gets the feeling she says it more for her benefit than his. “Just hold on.”  
  
He will. He’d tie string around the moon if she told him to.  
  
The trek back is a challenge in sticking to her instructions, but at long last they arrive at the hut on the outskirts of the village: it’s a worn, horrible thing with a sloping roof that looks like it’s seen more than its fair share of better days. It hadn’t looked nearly large enough on the outside to house their entire party, but the hut’s secret lies in its basement, which must have been dug out like a badger warren over however many years its life has encompassed.  
  
They pass the makeshift grave marking the front of the hut, though his vision is unreliably telling him there are _three_ crooked crosses dug into the icy ground, not just one. She drags him through the doorway, over creaking floorboards, down the steep set of (probably decaying) stairs, and onto a cot waiting by the firepit on the far side of the room. The place used to be an alchemist’s cove of some sort, though every ingredient that could have been of some use has long since withered away.  
  
He’s vaguely aware of being stripped down to nothing, and then the sensation of being swaddled in a thick, rough cloth—but it is retaining warmth, and that is all that matters, the only thing that _can_ matter.  
  
It might be hours later that he comes around, wrapped up to the nose in a blanket, staring into the fire, becoming slowly conscious of the fact that everyone is piled around him in various stages of sleep—Leliana herself is curled up on the dusty ground in her bedroll, back to the fire, breathing deeply, and Alistair’s part in the duet of snoring alongside Oghren (the main carrier of melody) could probably wake the dead.  
  
“You’re awake,” Cousland’s quiet voice says, and he turns his head to face her. She’s bundled in a cloak, sitting at the foot of the admittedly short cot, clad in a tunic and a simple pair of breeches. She looks so much younger with her hair unbound, eyes hazed with fatigue.  
  
“I am,” he admits, in a low tone, so not as to disturb the others. “...I think.”  
  
She rests her forehead on her knees, exhaling deeply. “I’m glad.”  
  
He smiles a little. Her concern is adorable. “Did I scare you?”  
  
“Yes,” she answers without preamble. “You did.”  
  
“Here I am, Cousland. Right as rain.”  
  
She reaches out, resting a hand just a hairsbreadth away from his. “I… yes. Well. _You_ are well. That’s good.”  
  
He has to chuckle. So shy—so proper. “It is,” he agrees, brushing the tip of his pinky along her knuckles.  
  
She ducks her head, but he can see the dimple in her cheek.  
  
Maybe taking a mountain to the face wasn’t so bad.

 

* * *

  
  
**iv.**  
  
  
  
He’s grown slow.  
  
He has no other explanation for why Carrick was able to creep by, snatch up his satchel of sugared chestnuts, and make off with it.  
  
“Get back here!” he yells, and only gets a muffled bark for his trouble. He scrambles after the hound, hopping above seats and unfurled blankets, leaping right over Leliana’s head and diving after the flash of mabari thigh he can see disappearing into a distant tent.  
  
“Watch where you’re going, twinkletoes!” Oghren roars after him, but Zevran has no ears for that complaint as he ducks inside.  
  
Zevran falls over the blasted dog upon entering—Carrick is a solid mass of immovable muscle, and Zevran’s legs lose the battle against that immediately; his knees buckle like a badly-made house of cards, and he goes tumbling straight into the ground with a grunt. He rolls over on his back, cringing at the feeling of what is sure to be a marvelous bruise above his right kidney.  
  
“ _Un rompiscatole_ ,” he groans when he feels hot mabari breath on his jaw. “That’s what you are, my friend.”  
  
Something drops onto his face. The satchel. Bloody cheeky dog.  
  
There’s a furious rustling of fabric behind him. “ _Zevran_?!”  
  
He sits up at the sound of Cousland, the pouch falling into his lap.  
  
“No, no,” she says, stuttering. “Don’t look!”  
  
Too late. He already has.  
  
She’s sitting in the middle of a pile of clothes, her vest and tunic pulled down to her waist; though she’s clutching an undershirt to her chest, the cloth is so fine he can see what she’s trying to hide right through it. She is clearly in the middle of changing. It’s not often that reality is better than imagination, and he’s not someone who falls prey to that sort of wishful thinking. He’s seen many people, thought a good amount of them passing fair, or handsome, or comely, learned that bodies are very different from the things authors put to parchment and bards to song—but once in a while he encounters someone that looks like a poem, or moves like music.  
  
Cousland is staring at him, eyes wide, looking _afraid_ , slender hands pressed hard against her undershirt.  
  
“Uh,” he remarks—very intelligent.  
  
She hangs her head, her hair falling all around her in a chestnut curtain. She’s not embarrassed. She is disappointed. “So bloody much for you not seeing.”  
  
He blinks, not understanding. “See what? You are—beautiful.”  
  
Now her face shows anger, and hurt. That’s not the usual reaction he gets from women that he’s called beautiful. “I told you I would know if you’re lying,” she says with a frown.  
  
He’s stunned into silence until Carrick nudges him in the shoulder. He’d forgotten the dog was even there. The chestnuts, too. He puts the pouch aside. “And I told you that you wouldn’t,” he replies, crossing his legs. “I would be a fool to lie to you now.”  
  
“You must be,” she insists. “Who would find this _beautiful_?” And she lets go of the undershirt.  
  
She has freckles across her collarbone—that’s the first thing he notices. The rest of the details begin trickling in after: there are healed scars everywhere, _everywhere_ , across her shapely breasts and shoulders, her abdomen, her neck… some are healed to bone-white, others are yet pink, tender-looking, like the vertical line between her ribs, something that looks too neat to be anything that she could have sustained in a fight. He’s seen the scars on her arms and wrists, of course—those are the parts of her collection she doesn’t hide at all—and he’d suspected they were more numerous, though this is beyond his every expectation.  
  
The ghastliest one is at her throat, not because it is overly noticeable or terribly long, but because he immediately knows the story behind it without having to ask. He has, of course, cut so many throats he’s lost count. He can recognize the signs easily enough. Cousland’s quirks make sense now. Her shirts are always high-collared; she takes care to keep her capes up, to tie little scarves around her neck. Deep down, he thinks, he’s known from the start, what she was hiding—perhaps it was his rapidly-growing affection for her that didn’t let him dwell on it long, because the thought of her suffering so brings with it abhorrent pain.  
  
She must take his silence as an answer in the negative, for she turns her back, leaving him with full view of the marks she carries there. A sunken starburst of puckered skin over her right shoulder-blade tells him that once, an archer drew a bow that fired an arrow that found her, _hurt_ her—and the thought angers him.  
  
She tenses, tendons taut, when he slowly moves to her side, so that their shoulders are inches away from touching. The heat of her warms his legs. She doesn’t face him.  
  
“I used to be pretty,” she says in a quiet voice. It digs at him like a blade. “I used to sing. It’s disgusting.”  
  
“Adrian,” he murmurs, reaching out, but hesitating before making contact. Doing that would be breaking a boundary—committing. He wants to. His hand lowers. He brushes his thumb across the arrowhead scar, listening to her pull in a sharp breath. The texture of it is soft, almost velvety. “No. Perhaps you can’t believe it yet, that you are beautiful—that’s fine. But try to believe that _I_ believe what I am saying. Because I do. And—” He stops himself there, uncomfortable with the sudden realization of what he was about to admit.  
  
She twists her upper body around, making his own breath leave him slowly.  
  
The entire world is now just the space between them—the hopeful shine of her gaze, every fluttering exhale, his fingers curled at her side, where his hand came to rest after she moved.  
  
“What were you going to say?” she asks, almost in a whisper.  
  
“And,” he starts, the word sitting thick on his tongue. “And I want…”  
  
Her eyes dart down as he talks, setting his blood on fire. “Yes?”  
  
For once, speech fails him.  
  
He leans in, giving her time to back out. She remains where she is, watching him with an eager alertness that makes him want to kick caution in the backside and forget it ever existed. The hand at her side slides up, pressing into the small of her back, and then he is kissing her, like he’s wanted to for months. Like he’s not going to have another chance. She moves up against him—he can feel every line of her keenly through the thin fabric of his shirt, very pleasant and feminine and _bare_ —tilting her head obediently when his palm cups her cheek.  
  
Her mouth is hot, and he’s drifting away on the taste of her. The dreams he’s had can’t compare. He’ll never be able to go back to them after this. She makes a plaintive noise against his lips that stokes his hunger for her further; he tangles his fingers in her hair, angling her so he can have better access to the sweetness he’s seeking, feeding this newfound dependency that’s seized him like a fever. She grips at his arms, steadying herself as she kisses back, so gentle his heart aches. He trails his knuckles along the swell of her chest, trying not to smile when she pulls away with a squeak.  
  
The sight of her is a feast: she is flushed with pleasure, the waves of her hair tousled, lips nibbled red and plump from his attentions. He’s never beheld a finer thing.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she blurts, even as he nestles his nose in the crook of her neck and nips the skin there. She jolts, surprised, but melts into his embrace.  
  
“Why would you be sorry?” he mumbles into her throat, kissing along the line of the scar there and feeling her shiver.  
  
“Because—all this time—I wanted to… but I was too _scared_ …”  
  
He drags his fingers along her hip. “No apologies, _cara mia_. Just relax.”  
  
“I can’t r-relax when you’re—ah…!”  
  
He blows cool air across the mark he’s left under her jaw, satisfied to see goosepimples trail after his touch. “How long?” he asks, bringing his focus back upward. “How long have you thought about this?”  
  
She shuts her eyes, dark lashes tickling at his face. “Long enough.”  
  
“I didn’t want to push you,” he confesses. “It’s—not something I’m very good at, I admit.”  
  
“You’ve been fine. More than fine,” she says, bashful again. Adrian clears her throat. “I probably don’t deserve this.”  
  
He swipes a thumb over the apple of her cheek, brushing at her lips. “Why deny yourself? I could show you so much…” he murmurs, pressing a languid kiss to her mouth. It will be very hard to stop doing that—kissing her—if she asks it of him. “We could have great fun, you and I.”  
  
Her face goes from pink to puce. “Zevran—”  
  
“You still haven’t answered my question.”  
  
“ _Zevran_ ,” she says, urgently, and he finally looks up at her.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
She nods at something over his shoulder, shoving at his bicep.  
  
He turns to get a better view, and certainly does—Carrick is still standing happily next to the pouch Zevran abandoned earlier, looking entirely pleased, panting, stubby tail wagging at breakneck speed.  
  
“I _can’t_ ,” she whispers to Zevran furiously. “Not while he’s—watching.”  
  
He purses his lips, trying to hold in laughter. “Would it help if I covered him with a sheet?”  
  
That earns him a poisonous look. She reaches out behind herself. “I need to put a shirt on…”  
  
“Do you? I was enjoying myself.”  
  
“I’m sure you were,” she says, fumbling to untangle the sleeves of the undershirt she’d crumpled so mercilessly earlier. “And I’m not _denying_ anything. I just—don’t like having an audience.”  
  
He helps pull it down over her head, chuckling at her stormy expression when she surfaces again. “That is duly noted for the future,” he tells her, watching her pull her hair away from her eyes. He can’t resist leaning in to peck at her cheek—she blinks rapidly, like he’s done the unexpected.  
  
She glances at the dog once more, almost in wonderment. “Maybe I should actually thank him.”  
  
Zevran laughs. “Do you think he planned it?”  
  
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Adrian says, shrugging. “The only thing he doesn’t do is talk.”  
  
“Ah, yes—and thank Andraste for that.”  
  
“You’re lucky it was just you launching yourself unannounced into my tent. Anyone else would be—”  
  
“—dead?”  
  
“Or worse.”  
  
“Right,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “Or worse.”  
  
He stares at her, hardly able to believe he’d been inches away from just giving in and ravishing her only a minute or two ago, canine spectator notwithstanding—and now they’re sitting here talking like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps it wasn’t out of the ordinary, then. Perhaps they’d just been dancing around something they both knew was there. Well, no one has ever said he was a well-adjusted assassin. He has to doubt whether a _well-adjusted assassin_ even exists. He thinks he’s doing alright, everything else considered.  
  
“Your brow is smooth. You’re _thinking,_ ” she says, pulling him from his musing. “What about?”  
  
Zevran only smiles at her. “Nothing in particular,” he replies. “Just this and that. The weather. Your rather incredible legs. Would you like a chestnut? They’re quite good.”  
  
She stammers over whatever she was going to say in return, resorting to bundling up a spare blanket and lobbing it in his face.  
  
He’ll have to make sure to spare some of his dinner for the mabari later.


End file.
